Alien Blitz 3d: Mobile, low quality option, performance on mobile

Mobile

I’ve changed my mind… again… I will still try to release a 3d version of Alien Blitz on mobile 🙂

It’s a long time I didn’t work on it, so there are some glitches to correct, and I’ll try to optimize stuff.

Mobile version will be more limited of course:

Lower quality (see below)

Less “smart” AI

No level editor

No game mods

30 fps

…

I think this can help Greenlight if people can have a pick at what it might look like.

Low quality

I’ve added a low quality option, it will be always activated on mobile, and will be selectable on PC (for very low end PC).

Limitations of low quality mode are (on PC):

No dynamic lighting

Less particles

Less terrain update

Other small things

Low quality on PC will be for very low-end devices such as netbooks.

Performance on mobile

I’ve set-up a “typical” resource intensive automated environment, the player gets teleported near monsters (including 2 bosses), they awake and start shooting, a static seed is used for RNG in order to get the same behavior every time. During 30 seconds FPS are recorded and average FPS is displayed.

Here are the current results:

Samsung GS 3 (power save mode): 21fps

Samsung GS 3: 25fps

Sony Xperia Ray: 10fps

Nexus 7 (2012): 25fps

Nexus 10: 29fps

iPod Touch: 12fps

At around 20fps it will not slow down the game as most engines run at 15fps and use position interpolation for frames in-between, but as some frames are lost so it will seem less smooth.

I think I need to get around 25-30 fps on the GS3 with power save mode on, and around 20fps on the iPod touch (which means it will run smoothly on more recent devices). If I can get these results I will release 3d on mobile (older devices will have to use 2d mode)